Jerker Play

One recent Sunday morning, gay playwright Robert Chesley and the Rev. Larry Poland were both in church, preaching their own personal gospel on the broadcasting of obscenity on the radio. The Gospel According to Poland, who preaches every week at the Highland Evangelical Free Church in Redlands: "The argument that you can turn it off if you don't like it is a little like saying you can complain after you've been mugged. If it's on the radio, anyone can listen . . . even children."

One recent Sunday morning, gay playwright Robert Chesley and the Rev. Larry Poland were both in church, preaching their own personal gospel on the broadcasting of obscenity on the radio. The Gospel According to Poland, who preaches every week at the Highland Evangelical Free Church in Redlands: "The argument that you can turn it off if you don't like it is a little like saying you can complain after you've been mugged. If it's on the radio, anyone can listen . . . even children."

April 24, 1987 | Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation's press

Citing "constitutional abuse" and "political censorship," officials of the Los Angeles-based Pacifica Foundation said Thursday it will fight the Federal Communications Commission in court over charges that radio station KPFK-FM broadcast obscene programming.

Charging that it was unfairly singled out for political reasons, the Pacifica Foundation filed suit here Thursday challenging the recent Federal Communications Commission action that set new enforcement standards for "indecent" broadcasts. The lawsuit challenged the commission's new policy along with the agency's decision to ask the Justice Department to consider criminal prosecution of Pacifica's non-commercial Los Angeles station, KPFK-FM (90.

For John G. Watson, his semi-autobiographical, one-person radio drama, "1965," is a painful but therapeutic attempt to come to grips with the traumas of his childhood and the turmoil that marked his life as a gay teen-ager during the beginnings of the hippie era. But for KPFK-FM (90.7), "1965" represents something more--a controversial program about a sexual issue that could get the station into more hot water with the Federal Communications Commission.

Thanksgiving is past, but turkeys remain. Heading the list is the Federal Communications Commission, the broadcast industry's deregulating regulatory agency commonly known as the FCC, a three-letter obscenity if there ever was one. This FCC imposes its will very selectively. On the one hand, it follows President Reagan's laissez-faire deregulatory line in seeking to eliminate the Fairness Doctrine and other rules that nudge broadcasters to act more responsibly and in the public interest.

While Pacifica Broadcasting howled about government censorship of Allen Ginsberg's classic beat poem "Howl" on Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission held firmly to its 10-month-old policy on broadcast indecency. The nonprofit foundation, which operates KPFK-FM (90.7) locally and four other public radio stations throughout the United States, had originally planned to air Ginsberg, a Los Angeles resident, reading his epic on the 30th anniversary of its publication.

The neat, blue signs in the Macintosh typeface tell the whole--if misspelled--story: ALL PROGRAMMERS--THERE HAS BEEN A DRAMATIC SHIFT IN FCC POLICY .. .. The warnings paper the walls, windows and bulletin boards throughout the worn and tattered North Hollywood studio of KPFK-FM.